Children's Outcomes Research Program

Welcome to the Children's Outcomes Research Program

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The Children's Outcomes Research (COR) Program was initially authorized and funded by The Children's Hospital Research Institute (TCHRI) in 2001. Stephen Berman, MD, was the first COR director, and Allison Kempe, MD, MPH, has directed the Program since 2007.

Mission

The mission of the COR Program is to contribute to an improvement of child health, both locally and nationally, by conducting state-of-the-art pediatric outcomes research that will impact clinical practice and child health policy.

Objectives

The specific objectives of the Program are to:

Develop focused areas of excellence in outcomes research of sufficient depth to result in national reputation for TCH and TCH faculty and major extramural funding in outcomes research.

Provide major research support to selected researchers at TCH who make a significant commitment to building outcomes research, including 1) methodological consultation, 2) assistance with data collection, 3) analytic support, 4) assistance with presentations and publications, and 5) assistance with grant writing.

Provide limited consultative support to researchers working outside of areas of focus for COR.

Develop and compile tools of general use to all outcomes researchers at TCH including libraries of measures and scales (e.g., quality of life, functional status, family and patient psychological well-being, satisfaction with care).

Help in the development of clinical databases at TCH and multi-institutional national outcomes databases useful to TCH researchers.

Develop expertise in analysis of existing national databases and provide analytic support to investigators collaborating with COR to use databases for publications or to provide pilot data for grant submissions.

Provide "bridges" for consultation and collaboration with researchers at COR and the Colorado Health Outcomes Program (COHO) at UCSOM in allied disciplines important to outcomes research.

Support using 4 Models

COR provides support using four models:

The Jump Start Model has been used in the past two years to focus efforts on building new areas of outcomes research, primarily in surgical outcomes and obesity prevention.

The Sustaining Model has provided less intensive support for areas of outcomes research that are already successful in order to increase growth, primarily in delivery of immunization and other preventive services and evaluation of health care delivery for low-income children and children with special needs.

The Consultative Model has been used to provide consultative services for numerous clinicians who wish to conduct clinical outcomes studies (in 18 different specialties).

The Capacity Development Model has been used to conduct educational seminars, to gather and develop analytic expertise in national databases, to develop libraries of data collection tools, and to create bridges among researchers in different areas.

COR-related research involves seven professional research assistants and four analysts. Consistent with the NIH roadmap emphasizing interdisciplinary models of research, COR projects rely on multidisciplinary collaborations among clinicians, epidemiologists, health services researchers, behavioral scientists, and statisticians at TCH, COHO, and UCD. In addition, COR collaborates with The Children's Hospital Outcomes Program directed by James K. Todd, MD; the Jules Amer Community Pediatrics Program; the AAP; the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment; Kaiser Permanente; Denver Health Medical Center; a network of six private pediatric practices; and Bright Beginnings, a statewide, community-based nonprofit that serves over 15,000 Colorado families.